Why do you presume that someone who made the public statement "I am a libertarian who has publicly supported Ron Paul and Gary Johnson in the past, and I plan on voting for Gary in this election as well" is a Trump supporter?
VR is impressive tech, but is Luckey a time traveler now? He went back to 2008, publicly supported and voted for Ron Paul to give himself plausible deniability for his future support of Trump? (EDIT: I'm leaving this error here, but Bob Barr was the Libertarian party candidate in 2008, and Palmer wasn't yet voting age. He would have needed to time travel to 2012 and vote for Gary Johnson, I suppose.)
Are you unwilling to even consider the possibility that Palmer is actually a libertarian, and holds beliefs consistent with mainstream libertarian positions? The 'evidence' in that article includes him liking posts on Twitter indicating he probably dislikes Hillary Clinton (something he would have in common with virtually all libertarians), supports Wikileaks (again, pretty common among libertarians), and that he frequently likes tweets/retweets from his girlfriend (common among virtually all young adults in CURRENT_YEAR who like being in a relationship).
It's pretty flimsy stuff, but presumably all the author could find to prop up the main bit, that Palmer donated to a non-profit with roots on T_D (which, obviously, is a cesspool) that…never seemed to do much of anything as far as I can tell.
I'm not "surprised" people call him a Trump supporter as a consequence, people say all kinds of dumb and unfounded things every day. I'm asking you to provide evidence for the assertion you made, or perhaps to reflect on why you (and seemingly everyone else in our culture) are so quick to label anyone with whom you have any difference in ideology as THE BIG BAD OTHER.
> Are you unwilling to even consider the possibility that Palmer is actually a libertarian
No. He may be a libertarian. If I told you I was a democrat and then donated to republican groups, what would you call me? If my girlfriend publicity supported republicans? At some point you really have to start looking at actions and not words.
My initial rebuke to your argument is simple: Words are extremely cheap. He claims NOW that he is a libertarian but his actions say otherwise. He has also demonstrated a willingness to lie. You can see his comments here where he confirms and then denies that he posted under the account in question: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/09/22/palmer-luck...
I don't find any of this "flimsy" or circumstantial. He backed the wrong guy and then backtracked when he got exposed and trump's nastiness started to really come to light.
Again, I almost feel bad for him. But this lying little Trumpkin helped elect trump, and for that, I will not make excuses and try and defend him. He pushed some cool tech but that doesn't put him beyond reproach.
No one is beyond reproach. But it would be nice if those reproachments were saved for people's actual words and actions rather than a laundry list of prejudices and assumptions extrapolated from a single data point. It would be even nicer if we could agree that disapproval of one or more of someone's political opinions doesn't require that they be made UNTOUCHABLE and banished.
If you said you were a Democrat, and voted for Democrats, but dated a vocal Republican, and donated to non-profits who were doing work you believed would do some good in the world regardless of whether they passed ideological purity tests, I'd call you a breath of fresh air.
* He said he used a pro trump account and then said he didn't. Both can't be true so we know he is a liar\lying about this incident.
* He donated money to a pro trump org
* His girlfriend is\was a trump supporter
* His 'like'ing pattern seems to fall in line with what a Trump supporter may do
Maybe he is a libertarian now. Maybe not. It is very difficult to tell because he seems to have an issue with honesty and his actions are not aligning with his words.
